Find Cross-Sector Partnerships: 4 Steps for Small Businesses

August 13, 2024

Cross-sector partnerships occur when organizations from different sectors form a mutually beneficial, collaborative relationship. For example, your dog boarding business might partner with a local shelter by collaborating on fundraising events and adoption drives. For your small businesses, a cross-sector partnership might be partnering with a nonprofit, government agency, educational institution, and more.

These partnerships should help both parties by combining strengths and resources, enhancing efficiency, and making operations more cost-effective. Partnerships can even improve your digital marketing efforts—reports show that mature partnerships can boost revenue from paid search by 10%. 

To help your small business leverage the power of a cross-sector partnership, we’ve broken the process down into four simple steps.

1. Identify prospective partners.

First, you’ll need to identify potential candidates. Ideally, these organizations should align with your business’s values and focus. For a pet groomer, an animal rights organization would be a natural first choice. A bakery, on the other hand, might opt to support a food pantry. 

You’ll also need to choose candidates that are likely to agree to a partnership with your small business, such as other local organizations. Some of the resources you can use to identify these organizations include:

• Guidestar or another nonprofit directory that allows you to filter by area, cause, etc.
• Your Chamber of Commerce’s business directory
• Local media such as newspapers, bulletins, radio stations, and news networks
• Networking events and platforms, particularly those used to cultivate business connections (e.g., LinkedIn)

Using these resources, put together a list of possible options and browse their websites, social media accounts, annual reports, and any information about past partnerships. For example, perhaps your local fire department used social media ambassadors to spread awareness of smoke detector maintenance. Make note of these collaborations, examine how successful they were, and plan to ask the candidate about the partnership.

2. Meet with prospects.

Once you’ve trimmed your list down to five to ten candidates that best align with your business’s mission and your goals for the partnership, begin reaching out to them. Be transparent in these communications by explaining that you’re interested in forming a partnership that will help both of your organizations achieve mutually held goals. 

While you may receive some rejections at this stage, remember that you’re still forming valuable connections in your community that could materialize into partnerships down the road. 

For the candidates who are interested in collaborating with your business, you’ll need to schedule an interview. This is a time for you and your potential partner to ask questions and get to know each other. As you plan the interview, start with questions like:

• What is your organization’s mission?
• What are your current priorities or goals for your organization (e.g., revenue, recruiting volunteers, spreading awareness of an issue)?
• How would those goals relate to or impact our partnership?
• Have you participated in a partnership before? What were the results/outcomes?
• What opportunities do you see for a partnership between our organizations?
• How do you plan to allocate time, personnel, and other resources to our partnership to achieve our shared goals?
• What are the best communication channels for us to use to stay in contact during the partnership?

Plan to conduct these interviews in person, or over the phone if it isn’t possible to meet. Make sure you’ll be speaking with a member of the partnering organization who can answer all of your questions and is a decision-marker. 

3. Develop a partnership agreement.

After completing the interviews, it’s time to choose a partner! 

When you’re ready to extend an offer, create a partnership agreement for the other organization to review and sign. 360MatchPro recommends having this type of contract in place to protect both parties and outline the scope and conditions of the partnership, particularly when money is involved.

Make sure to include the following elements in your partnership agreement:

Goals, Scope, and Timeline

Lay out each of these logistical elements at the top of the document. Explain how the goals will benefit both your business and the partnering organization. Define the scope of the partnership by detailing how much you will need to collaborate and describing the project or initiatives you’ll undertake together.

Roles and Responsibilities

Clearly define the contributions, resources, and expertise that each organization will provide during the partnership. Express how each responsibility relates to the partnership’s overall success to motivate each contributor to fulfill their responsibilities.

Financial Details

Detail the financial commitments or contributions each party will make (if applicable). If the goal of your partnership is to grow revenue, outline what percentage of that revenue each party is entitled to. For example, your boutique might collaborate with a nonprofit to create branded t-shirts and share 50% of the proceeds with the nonprofit.

Shared Assets

List any non-financial assets your organizations will share, such as email lists, brand guides, graphics, or even physical equipment. Establish usage guidelines and deadlines for submitting these assets to keep things running smoothly.

Communication Protocols

Determine which channels you will use to communicate with your partner, assign primary points of contact for each organization, and establish a standard window for responses (e.g., within one business day). Set expectations for sharing reports and partnership-related metrics, such as having someone from each organization send a weekly update.

4. Implement the partnership.

Once you’ve both signed the partnership agreement, it’s time to get to work! As your small business and its partner work together to achieve your goals, here are a few things you can do to keep things running smoothly:

Maintain Open Communication

Prioritize regular, transparent communication between your business and your partner to keep each stakeholder engaged and up-to-date. This will ensure both parties are aligned on your shared goals throughout the partnership, increasing the likelihood of success and satisfaction when the campaign is over.

Address Issues Promptly

It’s likely that you’ll encounter a few bumps in the road, such as a minor security issue, miscommunications, or a lack of community engagement. Work together to brainstorm solutions and overcome the issue together. This will establish a sense of trust between you and the partnering organization and get the campaign back on track.

Foster Continuous Improvement

Closely monitoring the key performance indicators (KPIs) that are relevant to your goals will help you identify opportunities for improvement during the partnership. This way, you can refine your approach to bring you that much closer to your goal. 

For example, let’s say your dog daycare partners with a nonprofit that provides free pet therapy, and your goal is to help them raise more revenue by selling branded collars at your facility. Using your dog daycare software, you notice that sales are low. To boost them, you add more signage, tell cashiers to share about the partnership during each transaction, and ask the nonprofit to post about the campaign more frequently on social media.

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A cross-sector partnership could be just what your business needs to tap into new audiences, show that you care about your community, and give back to the causes you care about. Plus, these partnerships hold much more value than simply pooling resources and expertise for a single goal. They also help you build a loyal network of organizations that share your values—a network you can help and rely on for years to come.

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